In many industries, various parts or products are placed into packets or pouches for health, sterile, convenience or protective reasons. These pouches or packets are then placed in large quantity boxes or other containers for ultimate delivery to the consumer or customer. Currently, placement of the pouches or packets into the boxes or other shipping containers is done by hand, which is labor intensive and time consuming.
Since the vast majority of packaging companies currently feed the packets or pouches by hand into the boxes or shipping containers, centrifugal precision feeders have been developed to aid in this process. Precision feeders, such as Hoppman Corporation model FT-40 or FT-50, utilize a large outer bowl rotating at one speed and a flexible inner disc rotating at another speed to create centrifugal force. The packets or pouches to be packaged are placed on the flexible inner disc and are transferred from the inner disc to an independently rotating orienting rim for delivery to the packaging station. The orienting rim has a flat, level surface. When the packets are transferred from the inner disc to the flat rim, the packages are often skewed in numerous directions. This skewed orientation of the packets or pouches at the packaging station prevents rapid packaging of these packets or pouches since time must be expended to straighten and correctly orient the packages or pouches before they are placed in the containers.
In the currently available precision feeders, the flexible inner disc is positioned over a metallic plate. In order to reduce the friction between the flexible inner disc and the metallic plate, a powder, such as talcum powder, must be placed therebetween. If no powder is utilized, the flexible inner disc may be torn and ripped due to friction. The flexible inner disc spins over the stationary metallic plate, which creates surface tension. This surface tension causes the flexible disc to stick to the plate, and since a center shaft is trying to turn the flexible disc, it can get twisted, with the flexible disc tearing near the center hub, thereby requiring frequent replacement. However, use of a powder between the flexible inner disc and the plate creates other problems in sterile environments or when used in the processing of sterile products because the powder particles in the air can enter the products, thereby destroying their sterility. Further, when a powder is utilized between the metallic plate and the flexible inner disc, labels or print will often not stick to the product packages.
Based on the fact that much of the packaging today is still done by hand, and the limitations of the currently available centrifugal precision feeders, it would be advantageous to have precision feeders which could quickly orient and align hard and/or soft packets or pouches of product or parts so as to be in the same direction. This is particularly important with malleable soft pouched products. It would be even more advantageous to accomplish this without the use of a powder between the flexible inner disc and the plate, particularly in food or medical-related fields.